Monday, December 15, 2008

BAGHDAD — Calling someone the “son of a shoe” is one of the worst insults in Iraq. But the lowly shoe and the Iraqi who threw both of his at President Bush, with widely admired aim, were embraced around the Arab world on Monday as symbols of rage at a still unpopular war.

In Saudi Arabia, a newspaper reported that a man had offered $10 million to buy just one of what has almost certainly become the world’s most famous pair of black dress shoes.

A daughter of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, the Libyan leader, reportedly awarded the shoe thrower, Muntader al-Zaidi, a 29-year-old journalist, a medal of courage.

In the Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City, people calling for an immediate American withdrawal removed their footwear and placed the shoes and sandals at the end of long poles, waving them high in the air. And in the southern Iraqi city of Najaf, people threw their shoes at a passing American convoy.

On June 3, Charlie Brown, chief counsel of Consumers for Dental Choice sent this announcement. It's a great historic victory, but the fight to ban dental mercury now proceeds to the next stage -- getting the FDA to classify it in Class III. This makes it all the more important for us all to submit comments to the FDA docket.

We Win -- FDA Must Classify Mercury Fillings

Dental amalgams contain mercury, which may have neurotoxic effects on the nervous systems of developing children and fetus.